Intel Core i5 13400 Review

Conclusion

We approached the Intel Core i5-13400 with some trepidation. After all, we’ve gone on the record loudly and often about how brilliant the 11400 was, and how good the 12400 was as a gaming processor. With the addition of E-Cores the Core i5-13400 certainly had no reason to be less capable than the ones that came before it, but there is always a possibility that the architectural adjustment might have put a crimp in the hardcore experience. We might also slightly worry that the Core i5-12400 was so good it took sales away from the 12600, leading Intel to nerf it in the next generation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Core i5-13400 is everything we were hoping it could be, whilst also leveraging those E-Cores to give you more performance in the creation tasks that are such a large part of our daily life. It would be easy to say that you just game, but even if you only clip a few gaming highlights to share with friends, or want to tweak all the pictures of your dinner you’ve taken on your phone for The ‘Gram, then having better, faster performance here is like an extra weapon in your armoury. Gaming is all well and good but we do like to do other things, and the 4 extra cores on the Core i5-13400 work beautifully here. Just look at Blender where the 13400 is nearly 11 minutes faster than the Core i5-12400 that preceded it in our 4K render. That’s a massive step forwards. to go that much quicker again you need to get the Core i7-13700K.

But affordable gaming is where the Core i5s have always shone and the Core i5-13400 is no exception. It’s a really good performer for the money. Total War: Warhammer III is a great example, being a game that places as much emphasis on the CPU as it does the GPU, and the i5 matches the performance we got from the flagship Core i9-13900K. Where the platform really scores is that the new B760 chipset is largely used on motherboards that still support DDR4. So if you’ve already got a system then you can upgrade without needing to buy a whole new set of components, and if this is your first foray into the world of gaming PCs then the entry cost is less than it would be with DDR5.

With a sub-£200 price point, very usable creation speeds and excellent gaming performance the Intel Core i5-13400 continues the amazing showing of their 1×400 processors, and the addition of E-Cores only makes it even more attractive, winning it our OC3D Gamers Choice and Value For Money Awards.

    

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